Changing foot strike and need new shoes recomendation (Read 126 times)

Hi, I'm curious on what was your transition process to a more mid foot strike. Did you just run with a lower drop shoe?

A lower drop shoe would automatically make you land less on the heels.

Hokas might be fine for you, if you can handle the extra cushion (they might feel too bouncy especially for lighter people)

Altras are out of the question for you. Altras are for people like me who have duck feet.

I don't think the blisters are necessarily related to changing foot strike. There might be several root causes, but I'd reckon taping it for the moment should help you out.

I used to have blisters when I ran (especially when running fast) on shoes that were bigger than my feet. At the time I didn't know of Altras so I ran in Nikes, but had to purchase them 2 sizes bigger so they could fit my foot width. there was always 1 1/2 inch extra at the front and that made my foot slide I guess. My blisters were under the big toe usually.

Flavio - I started getting knee pain in the 7th/8th week of my marathon training, eventually ended up with a PT who was wonderful, she figured out that lack of ankle mobility was actually causing the knee pain and helped me sort that out very quickly, BUT in the process she had me running for her a lot and she was the one who rec that i change my strike. i have a pretty long history of crappy hamstring issues to go along with the new knee issue, so i decided it couldn't hurt. I was heel striking even though i had shortened my stride length quite a bit, but my foot was flexed and leg was straight in my landing. I started with running barefoot on a track to get used to feeling how i should land on my forefoot, and i ran with a metronome. ironically i was already in low drop shoes (pureflows have a 4mm drop), i continued running with a metronome for several weeks to make sure my cadence was right (i settled in about 170-175 because 180 was just a bit to much for me) and i continued to see the PT. she tweaked here and there and currently i am landing midfoot first with my heel touching down, so almost flatfoot landing but not quite. i am still wearing the pureflows, the same size i have been wearing for the past several years.

i ran eight miles this morning. i bought injinji socks, but they are thin around the toes so even though my little toes did better, my big toe on both feet ended up with a blister on the side. so this morning i used the special expensive blister protect bandaids, and it helped, but when i stopped running i was barely walkiing my feet hurt so much. i get blisters right on the end of my toes in front of the nail. i currently have a blsiter under a toe nail as well that is pushing my nail up, so it catches and rubs on everything, which is excruciating. i seem to ocme home from every run with a new blister

i do want desparately to buy new shoes, but our family is on a pretty tight budget, with all of the PT and extra stuff recently i really need this current pair of shoes to last, i have about 200 miles on them and need them to go another 150-200 if i can (that's my normal for these shoes) but i might not make it, my feet hurt constantly and as i am rebuilding mileage they are getting worse and worse

Have you tried the 2 thin pair of socks?? Not sure this may even help. I have never been a fan of changing what your body has figured out for you. It does work for some runners but it usually takes a slow long adjustment. Remember the barefoot/Vibrams trend where many were getting beat up and hurt and it kind of went away.

It sounds like your new foot striking kind of jams your toes to the end of your shoes with each foot strike. From my perspective you simply have to try something different and your shoes do not work for your new foot strike. Any chance you have a friend or family member with the same shoe size where you could try their shoes a couple runs to see if there is a difference in how your toes feel after??

This might sound counter-intuitive, but if the new footstrike is the cause of the blisters, perhaps a pointy-toe shoe is the answer, not a wider toebox.

The pointy toe shoes do one thing very well, they prevent your foot from sliding forward. At the expense of the little and big toes getting blisters on the outside.

I've heard several stories about people changing to midstrike, because it's so hot right now, only to find new injuries and and issues. One guy did so under the direction of an online coach and after only a week it resulted in an injury that knocked him out for the summer track season.

Maybe not doing it right, and landing while the foot/leg is still in a forward motion, which actually results in "applying the brakes" with every step. It should be a "pawing" motion on the ground, landing with an ever so slight backwards motion of the foot/leg. I used to tell athletes to stride BACK, not forward (extending leg a bit more back during the gait, but never a big or exaggerated change)

It's hard to do a midfoot strike when you aren't running very fast. Most people naturally heel strike when walking and jogging, and move the strike position further up the foot the faster the effort, until you're sprinting just on the balls of your feet.

It could be possible that heel striking was not the problem.

Is it ever?

I think a lot of runners and particularly multi-sport coaches got enamored with slow-mo shots of elite marathoners running sub 5:00 pace and noticed the midfoot strike. Well, that's great...if you're running sub 5:00 pace (sub 5:30 for women). If you're plodding along at 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 and slower, that midfoot strike gets harder to achieve. Unless you're naturally a midfoot or forefoot striker, which some people are.